Obliterate

The power of obliteration is now in our hands. Technology primarily has functioned to make us; who we are, who we have been, more easily accessible to others. I did a little experiment the other day and googled the name I use on social networking sites. Within seconds I had found a page which I had forgotten existed, something created during my later teenage years, something which I didn't think would still be accessible to others now. More irritatingly there were other links to more current pages of mine, which connect teenage Frankie to present Frankie.

I'm told that you can remove your trace from the Internet. I have friends who have deleted their Facebook page, not something I particularly want to do, but I can see why people are concerned to ensure they don't get sucked into the social networking game, and don't want some things visible to prospective employers etc. But in addition to this, by storing information about ourselves and current situation online, then when this information is no longer relevant, no longer connected to our lives, no longer of use to anyone, then it can just as easily be deleted.

Think of how long it takes to remove a friend on Facebook, to block someone from IMing you, to unfollow somebody on Twitter; these things take a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, access has been denied. The same thing goes for pictures, videos, any other stored memories on the Internet. Removing these things can be done almost instaneously (yet it sometimes take SO long to upload pictures to the Internet...)

I think really this is in contrast to how memories and information works outside of the Internet. It can take as little as seconds to make a memory or selection of memories but deleting them...? It is impossible. There are a few memories I have which I would quite like to erase, to obliterate, to wipe completely, but there's no way of doing it. Even when I think I'll never think about that moment again, it will come to haunt me in a dream, a smell, a sound, a taste will take me back to it...

Not being able to obliterate memories is a good thing though. Would I want to negate the existence of who I am today? Because all those memories, yes, the bad ones too, they have made me, they have built me upon the foundations that were only already there because of, well, more memories.

There have been far too many amazing memories in my life so far for me to seriously want to obliterate any of them. Even the bad ones are tinged with good. I am a believer in things happening for a reason, so let me remember things exactly as they were, allowing experience to teach me the meaning of each one.

You don't have to hold onto the negativity in your past - let it go. But acknowledge it's there. You wouldn't be half the person you are today without it.